


peaches & plums

by armyofbees



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, eliot waugh is breaking my heart and this is what you get for it, oh my god i binged this show in a week and im dying, post 4x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 04:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17891525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armyofbees/pseuds/armyofbees
Summary: The Monster moves in a way that is a bit too close to feral, talks in a voice that’s too familiar in an affect that sounds downright alien. Everything is too right and too wrong and Quentin thinks, Why him? And why now?“That’s a funny word,” continues the Monster. “Love.”





	peaches & plums

**Author's Note:**

> yo listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIRznt1CFiM) song because it made me astral project after watching the ep
> 
> i started watching this show last week, fell in love w margo & eliot and haven't been the same since so of course i had to write something. enjoy!

“You love him,” he says, sounding surprised in that childlike way he has about everything. The way he was about the planes, about Quentin’s mom, about the sprinkles on his ice cream cone.

Quentin doesn’t nod. He doesn’t say anything, but the Monster never waits for him to respond anyway.

“That’s why you care. About him.” He hovers a little too close, a little too invasive. It’s all these little things that always remind Quentin that it’s not  _ really _ Eliot, and always a little bit too late. “He’s your friend, like I am. But he’s… more.”

Quentin swallows and folds his hands. The chair he’s sitting in is cushioned but threadbare and there’s an empty tumbler on the table next to him and he wishes he were sitting next to anyone but this  _ thing _ that isn’t Eliot.

“You understand why I told you he was dead.”

Quentin raises his eyebrows. “Yes. I do.” His voice catches.

“Couldn’t have you trying to  _ save _ him.” His hands wave in intricate patterns, like he’s conducting a symphony. Quentin isn’t watching, is staring at the floor, can’t look at him right now. “Very moving, though. And inconvenient.”

The Monster moves in a way that is a bit too close to feral, talks in a voice that’s too familiar in an affect that sounds downright alien. Everything is too right and too wrong and Quentin thinks,  _ Why him? And why now? _

“That’s a funny word,” continues the Monster. “Love. It’s another one of those human things? The ones I don’t…  _ get. _ Like with your father?” He pauses briefly, leaning forward. “I helped with that.”

Quentin can’t do this tonight. What happened with Eliot today, everything he knows they have to do — are going to do — is all too much. He stands and grimaces a forced not-frown. “Can I… be alone? I’m going to bed.”

“Oh…” says the Monster, a delighted revelation. “Because… I… look like him. Oh, this will be fun.”

Quentin doesn’t beg for him to stop, doesn’t ask him to please, just leave it, for once in your life don’t  _ hurt. _ Instead, he turns to leave the living room.

“Peaches and plums,” says Eliot’s voice as Quentin reaches the bottom of the stairs, in a way that is horrible and gut-wrenching.

Quentin doesn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around.

“Those are new words. Together, like that. It means something… to  _ you.” _ The floor creaks as the Monster stands. “To him, too.”

“Stop,” Quentin says, rage flaring up inside him, then catches himself. “Please,” he grits out.

“Goodnight,” says the Monster. There’s a beat that Quentin knows he’s savoring. “Q.”

Quentin starts back up the stairs.

 

* * *

 

“Do you think that you miss him because he never  _ really _ said it?”

Quentin shuts his eyes and Julia’s hands recommence their anxious tapping on the pages of her book.

“I love  _ you,” _ the Monster singsongs, lilting and playful, experimental.

“Look, do you want us to find Demeter or not?” Quentin snaps.

“Q,” murmurs Julia, cautionary. She lays her fingers on his wrist.

“I’m sorry,” says the Monster, suddenly too close behind him, a hand on his shoulder. “Does that hurt you?” Quentin can picture his wolfish smile. “I’m just… bored.”

“Just a few more minutes and we’ll have the summoning ritual,” Julia assures him, fingers tightening on Quentin’s wrist. “What if you helped gather some of the materials we already know we need?”

“Make myself… useful?” the Monster asks faintly.

“Yes?” says Julia. Her voice wavers.

Without a word, he reaches out, takes the list lying next to her, and disappears. Julia exhales, lets go of Quentin. Quentin scrubs a hand over his eyes and goes back to his book.

“Hey, Q,” Julia says after a moment of uneasy silence, nudging him. “It’s only a little longer. We’ll get him back.”

Quentin smiles quickly, unconvincingly. “I know.”

“Really.” Julia purses her lips. “We won’t let him get hurt. We’re gonna fix this.”

Quentin shakes his head, small but frantic, and his hands are shaking when he explodes, “What — what, by giving a god-killing monster a  _ more _ functional body? By saving Eliot just so we can go right back to getting him killed? I— Juls, do you  _ know _ how bad this is?”

“Q, I am the  _ only _ person who knows how bad this is.” Julia searches his face, her eyebrows knitting and her lips pressed together in that way that means she’s so, so sad. “You can only ever keep going. And hope.”

“Hope?” Quentin asks, incredulous.

“Yes. We’re running on the word of a malicious god-eater and the audacity of hope.” Julia takes his hand and squeezes it. “And it’s gonna work.”

“Well.” Quentin offers another weak smile and glances down at his book. “I hope you’re right.”

Demeter dies the next day, and they’re another step closer.

 

* * *

 

There’s a knock on his door, but the Monster’s already inside his room. Quentin isn’t surprised — they’d only managed to teach him the act of knocking before he got bored and disappeared to go kill puppies or something. He’s been getting antsier, more skittish, and Quentin is sickeningly hopeful.

“Why plums?” asks the Monster. “Peaches, I mean — they’re sweet, and they don’t last. I understand… why. But plums… they’re so — sour. What do they mean?”

Quentin sits on his bed and thinks he could laugh at the absurdity. “That’s… not it at  _ all.” _ He contemplates lying to the Monster’s face, because he doesn’t know how much he really wants to tell, then thinks,  _ what the hell? _ There’s only so much longer this will go on. “We lived a life together,” he admits. “And there was… a girl. She brought us peaches and plums, and, I don’t know, it’s the easiest thing to think about from that timeline?”

“It’s not easy for him,” says the Monster. He sounds delicate and genuine, which is unsettling in a million ways that make Quentin think so much of Eliot. “None of it is. Remembering… you.  _ Q.” _

Quentin balls his hands and doesn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you, Quentin.” The Monster stands all the way across the room from him, still too close. He studies Quentin with intense curiosity. “But he’s fascinating. You’re fascinating. Do you know what he’s doing right now? In here?” The Monster taps Eliot’s temple. 

Quentin shakes his head. He hadn’t known that the Monster could know that. The Monster smiles Eliot’s smile and shakes his head. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He’s  _ waiting. _ For you.”

Quentin’s mouth is bone dry, his tongue not working like it should. He can’t think, can only think of Eliot, trapped inside himself, alone with nothing but everything he could never say.

“He trusts you.”

Quentin can only nod. It’s the first time that the Monster’s really talked about Eliot, about what he’s doing,  _ how _ he’s doing. And Quentin has been so, so frightened. Terrified that that one moment had just been a blip in the system, that Eliot really was gone, that he’ll have done everything for nothing. He could cry for joy. Bittersweet, bloody, ruthless joy.

“Soon I will have a new body,” the Monster says. “And you still want him back.”

Quentin nods. “Can I?” and gods, Juls, he is  _ hoping. _

The Monster looks at him, peculiar and concerned on a face that he needs to remember isn’t Eliot’s. “Well. I won’t need him anymore, so once I have my body… he’s yours.” There’s a distant crackling and he’s gone.

“Oh,” says Quentin, weakly, into the empty. He gasps and half-chokes. “Oh, my god.” His lips tremble and his breath shakes in his chest. Tears fall from eyes that haven’t cried for months and Quentin feels everything beautiful and terrible all at once.

 

* * *

 

The Monster’s new body is grotesque and exquisite, constructed from Julia’s power reserves and Margo and Quentin’s sheer, shared desperation, like Frankenstein’s monster made magic. Building it is disturbing in a way that makes Quentin distinctly aware of every crime he’s committed against nature to get here. The Monster surveys it, pacing circles in a manner that half resembles a vulture and half a satisfied customer.

Finally, he looks at Quentin and says, from Eliot’s mouth, “Thank you.” A flash of blinding light, and when Quentin can finally open his eyes again the new body is gone and Eliot is on the ground, unmoving.

Josh, Kady, and Penny stand to one side. Julia’s collapsed against the opposite wall, and next to Quentin, Margo is already moving, knees hitting the floor with a thud as she pulls Eliot into her arms and whispers into his hair.

Quentin moves more slowly, barely daring to think or to hope, kind of because he never actually believed they’d get this far. He kneels next to Margo and watches Eliot’s chest rise and fall, and watches his eyes flicker, and lets himself breathe for the first time in months. He can’t hold himself together anymore — he digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and breathes in and out with wet, shuddering exhales of everything he’s done for this one person. Margo rocks back and forth, Eliot in her arms, Quentin kneels next to her and shakes, and they can’t move for a long time.

 

* * *

 

Eliot doesn’t wake up right away. It would’ve been awfully romantic and, really, Quentin thinks, very nice of him if he’d woken up right away, in Margo’s arms, so Quentin could kiss him off of an adrenaline high.

Instead, Eliot spends a few days asleep recuperating. Quentin and Margo trade off nights at his bedside, and take turns getting food while they wait because Julia would most likely kill them if they didn’t eat.

“I’m gonna get this over with now,” says Margo on the second day, cold cereal balanced on her lap and a dangerous-looking spoon gripped tightly in her hand. “Eliot hurts a lot, all the time, in a lot of different ways. And he doesn’t like talking about it, or facing it, or really doing many things that would be beneficial to him.” She heaves a sigh and looks at Quentin in an imposing way that he thinks the eyepatch really enhances. “He’s hurt you, too. I can tell that much. And you both need to deal with that yourself, okay? But if you hurt him on purpose it will be the last thing you ever do. Got it, bitch boy?”

Quentin stares at her and feels like crying. He loves her so much. “Yeah. Thanks, Margo.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” Margo takes a bite of her cereal and sulks in his general direction for a few hours, and Quentin can’t help but smile.

 

* * *

 

Eliot comes to just as Quentin is leaving for bed. It’s Margo’s turn to take the night shift and Quentin’s prepared for another night of not really sleeping as he waits and hopes, tense, for Eliot to wake up.

Quentin’s hand is on the door handle when Margo gasps, loud, breath catching in her throat. “Eliot? El.”

“Bambi,” says Eliot’s voice, entirely his own, and Quentin is paralyzed. He turns so slowly to see Margo holding Eliot so tight, eyes squeezed shut and positively  _ not _ crying, probably because Quentin is there. Eliot hugs her back, a little weakly but so incredibly himself.

Margo lets him go after a few moments and just takes his hands. “We thought we lost you.”

“I know,” says Eliot.

“Don’t  _ ever _ do that to me again. Okay?” Her eyes are wet and Quentin has the decency to look away.

“Okay. Okay.” He gathers her into his arms again and Quentin feels like an intruder.

Margo pulls away again and steps back, nodding in Quentin’s direction. Her hands are clasped tightly in front of her, shaking slightly. “I’ll be outside, alright?”

“Alright.” Eliot takes a deep breath. “Margo? I love you.”

Margo smiles tightly, her eyes still damp and her expression quavering. “I love you too.” She closes the door behind her when she leaves.

“Welcome back,” says Quentin, still standing awkwardly by the door. Eliot nods, watching him with an expression something like disbelief. Quentin lets the silence drag on a little longer before he realizes that Eliot isn’t going to say anything first. “I missed you,” he says finally, surprising himself, and opening the floodgates. “And I never got to say anything back? When you managed to— And I… I wasn’t even sure you’d want me to? I didn’t know if that was just so I would  _ know, _ because, god, I’d  _ always _ know. And I didn’t want to, like, overstep, but I just — Eliot, I —”

“Q,” Eliot says, in his own voice and his own way and Quentin could melt into the floor. “Come here.”

“Oh — okay.” Quentin crosses the room and Eliot sits up to meet him when he settles on the bed.

Eliot pulls him into a hug, hands familiar on Quentin’s arms and neck, holding him close. “I wouldn’t just say that. Peaches and plums, right?”

“Right,” Quentin breathes. “Peaches and plums.”

Eliot strokes his hair. “Quentin?” There’s something like fear in his voice, and Quentin almost knows before he says it.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Quentin feels himself smiling as he pulls back to look Eliot in the eyes. He’s never been so happy, so proud. “I love you too.”

“I mean it this time. And I’m sorry I couldn’t… before.” Eliot swallows, studying Quentin with eyes like glass, and he leans in to kiss him. Kissing Eliot is familiar —  _ fifty years, proof of concept, peaches and plums, motherfucker. _ Kissing Eliot unties a knot in Quentin’s chest that he hadn’t realized needed untying. It hits him, finally, that he has Eliot back and that he’s okay, they’re  _ okay. _

_ Hope, _ he thinks, quiet and happy.  _ Peaches and plums and love and hope. _

**Author's Note:**

> check out my [tumblr](https://townhulls.tumblr.com/) if ur feeling up to it!


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